Takeaways

• In a study of two point seven million people who founded companies in the United States between two thousand and seven and two thousand and fourteen, the average founder was about forty-two years old, and for the fastest-growing one in a thousand firms the average was forty-five. A fifty-year-old founder was about one point eight times as likely as a thirty-year-old to build one of those fastest-growing firms.
• What age carries is the engine: founders with three or more years of work in the same sector as their startup were about twice as likely to build a top-growth firm. The study covered firms with employees in one country; it is a pattern, not a law, and it does not say a young founder cannot win.
• Something to try: before Friday, say or write down the one industry or problem you already know from the inside, and one thing you have seen there that costs people money or time.